Echoes In The House
by darkestboy
Summary: The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack take a trip to the countryside in 1900 and come across a house full of evil spirits. Set between Boom Town and Bad Wolf.


**Name:** Echoes In The House  
**Characters:** 9th Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Mike Yates  
**Synopsis: **The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack take a trip to the countryside in 1900 and come across a house full of evil spirits. To make things even stranger, they encounter Mike Yates, who's been looking for the Doctor.

It had been a little quiet in the TARDIS for everyone concerned. A few minutes had passed since Margaret the Slitheen had tried to kill them and now that she was reduced to an egg, the Doctor, Rose and Jack were more than just little worried about their unwanted passenger.

"Are you sure she's not gonna hatch out and lunge for my throat again?" Rose had asked, a little worried.

"Course not. You're perfectly safe," the Doctor assured. "She won't be hatching for another while yet."

"And if we can get her in with the right family, she might not turn out to be a raging psychotic either," Jack offered.

"That too," the Doctor smiled, feeling more trusting of Jack than he had been at first. Still there was just the odd moment when he missed it being just him and Rose but perhaps Jack's presence was a good thing.

The three of them smiled at one another, while each separately gazing at the egg, hoping it wouldn't crack. When the TARDIS jerked violently, they suddenly became more worried. Then another jerk and the Doctor looked worried as he struggled with the controls.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Rose asked, her voice going up an octave. She watched as Jack managed to grab the Margaret egg from cracking.

"I don't know," the Doctor answered, not looking at her, still trying to get the TARDIS to work properly until suddenly all three of them were thrown alongside to the floor. Each of them grunted given the violent impact in which they had landed on the ground of the TARDIS. After a few more minutes of relentless jerking and shaking they had landed, though where was anyone's guess.

"It's stopped," Jack said in a whispery voice.

"That's not good, is it?" Rose asked again. The Doctor just gave her a look that meant he hadn't the foggiest.

"No point in standing here wondering what's out there?" the Doctor motioned Rose and Jack. "Let's find out what we're dealing with."

With that the three of them stepped out of the TARDIS. The chances of it being a dangerous alien world were possible. Maybe Margaret had sent out a signal and when they stepped out the Doctor, Rose and Jack could be slaughtered by vengeful Slitheen. Or just maybe they had landed back in the Powell Estate. Jack was hoping not as trying to beat off Jackie with a stick had worn him out.

Instead it was an old house, somewhat warm and cold at certain point, bright in one room and dark in the other. Judging by some subtle decorations on display, Rose had deduced that it was Christmas in this place. Of course being that this was purely a house of celebration and family, it didn't shock either of them when a matriarchal figure was standing before them, not looking at all impressed.

"What are you doing in my house?" Virginia Suthersby asked as she then noticed the TARDIS in her hallway. "And what on Earth is that ghastly thing?"

"It's a TARDIS," Jack chimed, giving the sullen woman a warm smile that failed to soften her stern features.

"I do not care for it my home and who are you people?"

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor introduced himself as he shook the woman's hand, "and these two are Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness. We're here for the dinner party."

"I don't remember you on the list," Virginia pointed out, remaining suspicious of the three newcomers.

"Sure you do," the Doctor said, even more pointedly. "I've got the invite here. The Doctor and Friends, now do you remember?"

The Doctor waved the psychic paper in the woman's face. At first it looked like she wasn't buying into it but soon enough she succumbed to the lure of the paper. Rose had always wondered just how effective that piece of paper had been.

"Well very, I suppose you better make yourselves at home," Virginia muttered as she began to head towards the main dining room.

As they headed inside the dining room, a faint light from outside alarms all three of them. As Rose and Jack sit down to the table and are offered hot Christmas as the array of folk at the dinner party take an interest in their unusual attire and speech patterns, the Doctor is tempted to take a look outside.

"It looks we have a new guest for dinner, set up an extra plate, Cecily," Hugh Suthersby, husband of Virginia ordered the young maid. Then looking at the Doctor, Rose and Jack, he continued, "you all seem to have the most unusual of clothing."

"We're not from around here," Rose explained while shovelling another helpful of turkey and stuffing down her throat.

"That's good," came a familiar voice that the Doctor recognised and fortunately not one that instilled terror or regret but definitely a certain amount of intrigue. "I'd hate to be the only unusually dressed guest at this party. Hello, Doctor."

The man standing in front of him was none other than Mike Yates, wearing the same clothing he had worn after their encounter with those giant spiders but that was back in 1974 and judging by the timing, this was 1900.

"Who's the soldier?" Jack whispered in the Doctor's ear, his interest piqued.

"Stop it!"

"I only just asked," Jack defended himself.

"That's flirting for you," the Doctor reminding Jack that he knew of his flirting habits.

"Who is he?" Rose asked, less eager than Jack.

"Mike Yates. I'm an old friend of the Doctor's," Mike told the both of them as he sandwiched himself seating wise between the Doctor and Rose.

"Nice to meet you, Mike," Jack smiled, shaking his hand and giving him a flirtatious wink, which Mike seemed flattered by.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, Mike," the Doctor asked "but how are you here?"

"Technology," Mike answered as he pulled out a teleport device from his coat pocket, ignoring the fact that food had been served to him. "I was trying to find you and I ended up here. Which means that something bad must be afoot, right?"

"You said it," the Doctor sighed as everyone began to tuck into their food, he could hear a faint echo in the walls. There was something about this house that he didn't like. He could feel something in the walls. This should be a time of festivities but with Mike here all of a sudden, danger looked more likely to be on the menu.

The Doctor almost cursed himself for thinking of danger too soon. It seemed that just by entertaining the idea of danger, it was very much on their door. The walls were beginning to vibrate and even the table shock a few times.

"Doctor, what the hell is that?" Mike asked, getting up from the table.

"Where did you get that teleport?" Jack asked.

"Torchwood. Does it matter?" Mike wondered aloud.

"I'm not being rude but like the Doctor asked a few minutes ago, why are you here?" Rose asked. "Why here of all places?"

"Never mind that," the Doctor snapped. "I think we were all brought here deliberately. Weren't we?"

That last question had been addressed to Virginia, Hugh and their guests as well as Cecily the maid, all of whom had been acting a little too serenely during the constant vibrations from the wall. At the very back of Virginia's eye, the Doctor could see the faintest trace of green. There might have been a Virginia Suthersby once but the woman standing before them certainly wasn't here.

"I was hoping we could fool you for a bit longer," Virginia tutted, "but then again, the Time Lord and his companions always did seem to be smarter than their attire would suggest."

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, while trying to block out the deafening screams from the walls out of his head. Rose, Jack and Mike were trying to ignore it as well but it was clear it was standing to affect them, Mike in particular.

"Do you want our full name or should we all just hold up our hands and say 'nefarious aliens with a dastardly scheme?'" Hugh chuckled, in spite of his sense of humour being lost on the Doctor and his friends.

"I won't ask again," the Doctor bristled, realising that his anger was in danger of getting the better of him. Rose stepped closer to him, taking his hand. He didn't look at her.

"We're the Untitled," Virginia answered.

"I've never heard of you," the Doctor stammered, surprising himself and everyone else in the room.

"What's an Untitled?" Jack demanded to know.

"We have no name, no purpose," Hugh folded his arms and walked around them, not too closely, though he knew they probably wouldn't run screaming just yet. "We came out of a collapsing star, fell to Earth and."

Hugh let that word hang. He wanted to see if the Doctor, clever as he was reputed to be would figure it out. The screams in the walls became more and more intense that Mike crumpled to the floor, digging his fingernails into his scalp that Jack was convinced he'd tear his hair out. As Jack tried to pry Mike's fingers from his scalp, the former UNIT soldier's head was throbbing maniacally.

"I can't … my head," Mike moaned in agony, "that noise, it won't stop." Mike then looked at Hugh and Virginia, hot tears streaming from his eyes. "What the hell is it? What have you done to me?"

"Hurt does it? Cecily asked eyes bright and wide with fascination. Then noticing Rose and Jack as she pointed at them. "Why aren't you two in searing agony like your friend?"

Rose and Jack found themselves slammed to a wall, a tight grip forming around their throats, with the both of them trying to break from the grip. A few seconds later, they were just pinned to the wall, the strangulation having stopped. As Mike began to faint, the Doctor caught him from falling and put him on a chair. He then turned to the Untitled.

"Stop this now," the Doctor ordered, his voice steely with determination. "You will not kill anyone else in this house."

"Why not?" Virginia challenged. "The people who dined here made far less of a fuss when we took their bodies. After all, you're no use to us alive but dead, we may have some superior forms."

This reminded the Doctor of an earlier altercation himself and Rose had with the Gelth, which ironically enough also took place in a big fancy house during a Christmas period. He half wondered if the Untitled were an evolved or mutated version of the Gelth. Their need for bodies definitely stirred up associations with that species.

"Is that them in the wall?" Rose shouted, fighting the urge to get away from the wall. Soon enough both her and Jack's combined willpower was enough for Cecily's hold on them to cease.

"At least one of you knows something," Hugh said, praising her. "We take the human form and expel the soul into the walls of the place we steal the bodies from. It's not death as such."

"But it's not living either," Jack snarled, coldly furious. "You're not taking us."

"Oh, but we are," Virginia trilled. "You four are so special, to answer our distress call like that."

"You contrived this," Mike realised. "My dreams. Those voices that were in my head, night after night for countless weeks. You wanted us all here."

"Oh yes," Cecily affirmed.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

"Like the Gelth," Hugh smiled at the Doctor knowingly, "we also have difficulty sustaining our existence and so we need a host. Four of us are in unstable bodies, on the verge of collapse, so we decided to send a distress call throughout the very ends of time and space in a bid to find perfect vessels and look what we got?"

"A Time-Lord," Virginia cooed, "and his companions from the past, present and future, chronologically speaking and on Christmas too of all seasons."

The Doctor realised that if they didn't leave now, they would be joining the unfortunate souls that were trapped in the walls.

"And there's nothing you can do," Cecily added. "Come to us."

"Doctor?" Jack asked.

"Run," shouted the Time Lord and instinctively they did as Hugh, Cecily, Virginia and the five 'guests gave chase. Once inside the TARDIS, the Doctor bolted it shut with everyone trying to catch their breath and the Untitled banging furiously on the door, unable to get.

"What do we do?" Rose wondered aloud. "We can't leave, right?"

"No," the Doctor confirmed.

"But if we go out there, we're dead, right?" Jack deduced.

"Yes," the Doctor answered.

"So again what do we do?"

"I don't know," the Doctor snapped, looking at the monitor, seeing that Virginia and her evil gang were staring at them victoriously, knowing that the Doctor could see them and taking comfort in that knowledge.

"You can stay in there all you want but the four of you will have to come out at some point, even if it isn't of your volition," Virginia pointed out.

"Can she get in?" Mike asked.

"No," the Doctor told him. "At least I hope not. Then again this is big enough to hide a whole army and then some. This is the first time, you've ever really been in my TARDIS. Kind of a big moment really."

"Yeah," Mike agreed, "and incredibly appropriate that my life being in utter peril would be the reason behind my stepping into the TARDIS."

"How do you two know each other?" Rose asked, interrupting the conversation.

"I use to do some freelance work for UNIT back in the day, when I was a much different looking man" the Doctor remembered. "Mike was a soldier, one of the most loyal and devoted."

"Was?"

"Long story," Mike blushed a little, "not brilliant on my part."

"But what about them outside?" Jack reminded everyone. "How are we going to stop them?"

"I think I can help there," Mike butted in, pulling out a chunky looking device from his pocket.

"What's that?"

"It's got no name as far as I can tell but it does serve a purpose," Mike said. "It expels things that don't belong in their natural bodies. That being said, there are two problems we face."

"Predictable," the Doctor pointed out. "What are they?"

"It'll cause a massive explosion when used which means you'll really have to get us out of here in no time," Mike continued, looking at the nervous looks on Rose and Jack's faces.

"How do we get it out? If we step out with that thing, we're dead," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah, I do think we're aware of that," the Doctor testily said.

"Come out Doctor or we will burn that machine of yours," Hugh bellowed for all of them to hear. Jack shuddered a little as did Mike and Rose.

"I'll do it," Mike offered. "Makes sense seeing as Torchwood sent me back in time with it."

"Mike, no," protested the Doctor.

"I've seen how this ends, Doctor," Mike said, standing his ground. "Now open the door and tell them to step back."

The Doctor could protest but he knew that Mike wouldn't back down so he opened the door and let him through. Fortunately enough, the Untitled stepped back to give Mike breathing space, though if they wanted to pounce on him, they wouldn't have to try too hard.

"Any last requests?" Virginia asked tartly.

"Yeah," Mike murmured. "Stay out of my head."

Before they could reply, Mike slammed furiously on the device as he threw it on the ground and slammed the TARDIS door. With that the Doctor slammed on the controls and teleported the TARDIS out of the house. While they were moving fast, they could still feel the scorching from the heat of an exploded house, the cascading screams of a civilisation being destroyed and weeps of souls finally moving. All four of them held on tightly to the console, determined.

What felt like forever, the TARDIS had then landed in a field. Each of them stepped outside to the majesty of snow, the field literally covered in it. Over afar they could see a family coming back from Christmas mass.

"It's beautiful," Rose said. "And we're alive."

"I've had worst Christmases," Jack drawled.

"I haven't," Mike countered, then looking as his teleport beeped. "Though I'm not really sure if I want to count this as a Christmas for me. I have to go."

"Thank you," the Doctor said, shaking his hand. "Nice to see you again. Take care of yourself."

"I will," Mike said, then saluted the Doctor while getting a salute back from Jack.

"Goodbye," Rose also said, hugging him. Mike smiled at her.

"I suppose I might not get the chance to do this," Mike said as he took Jack in for a kiss. Jack did nothing but grin, 'I knew it' to Rose.

"Bet you're not going to tell him off," Jack smiled at the Doctor, referring to Mike of course.

"Perhaps not."

With that Mike slammed on the teleport and faded away, heading back to 1974. He rationed to himself that there was no point telling the Doctor that Torchwood weren't his greatest of fans as there was no point telling Torchwood that he met up with a younger Doctor.

"So where to next?" Rose asked the Doctor and Jack, all the while knowing that they had to take Margaret back to her home planet. A part of her was tempted to ask the Doctor if they could stay in 1900 for a little longer to celebrate Christmas without the threat of getting body hijacked but she realised that they needed to stay focused for the time being.

- The End -


End file.
